7th December 2000

Pension Scheme by Autonomous University with out approval of Governor which depends for Grants on Govt. – not valid = 39. Statutes how made – 1. Statutes under this Act shall be proposed by the Board and submitted to the Chancellor for his assent and shall come into force only after the assent is received and notified by the Vice-Chancellor. 2. Any statutes may be amended or repealed by the Board with the assent of the Chancellor. 3. All Statutes made under this Act shall be published in the official Gazette.”= Section 39 of the Act, it was obligatory on the part of the Board of Management of the University to submit the resolutions dated 7th December, 2000 and 18th December, 2009 to the Chancellor i.e. to the Governor of the State of Rajasthan before inviting options from the employees. If the assent of the Chancellor, i.e. the Governor of the State of Rajasthan is not received by the University, the amended statute would not come into force.- Upon carefully going through the statutory provisions, we are of the view that the High Court ought not to have constrained the University to continue to pay pension to the respondent-employees, especially in view of the fact that the change effected in the payment of retiral benefits to the employees was never approved by the Chancellor of the University as required under Section 39 of the Act.- though the University is an autonomous body, it is much dependent on the State of Rajasthan in its financial matters. It gets substantial funds from the State for performing its duties and possibly for the said reason the State has control over it in the financial affairs. Be that as it may, Section 39 of the Act makes it mandatory to get approval or assent of the Chancellor of the University before effecting any change in the Statute.= For the aforestated reasons, in our opinion, the order dated 3rd June, 2011 passed by the appellant, whereby both the resolutions passed by the University in relation to giving options to its employees for changing the Contributory Provident Fund scheme to the Pension Scheme, is absolutely just and legal. We are, therefore, of the view that the High Court was not correct while quashing and setting aside the order dated 3rd June, 2011 passed by the appellant-State of Rajasthan.= whether the University can continue to give pension to the employees? Answer to the question would be in the negative. If issuance of show cause notice is a mere formality, in our opinion, that would not affect the decision taken by the University in pursuance of the order dated 3rd June, 2011 because the order dated 3rd June, 2011 passed by the appellant-State is absolutely legal and by virtue of the said order, the resolutions dated 7th December, 2000 and 18th December, 2009 passed by the University have been quashed. In the aforestated circumstances, we quash and set aside the impugned judgment delivered by the Division Bench of the Rajasthan High Court, which has confirmed the judgment delivered by the learned single Judge. The order dated 3rd June, 2011 passed by the appellant-State shall operate and the employees shall be given retiral benefits as per the Contributory Provident Fund Scheme which was in force prior to 7th December, 2000. So far as the retired employees are concerned, they must have been paid pension in pursuance of the judgment delivered by the Division Bench of the High Court. As all the appeals have been allowed, some financial adjustments will have to be made and possibly there would be some recovery from some of the employees. We clarify that upon overall adjustment of the entire amount, if any employee has to return any amount to the University, as a special case, no demand shall be raised by the University in view of the fact that the employees must have retired long back and they must have adjusted their financial affairs upon knowing the fact that they had a regular income of pension.

published in http://judis.nic.in/supremecourt/imgst.aspx?filename=40829     REPORTABLE   IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA   CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION   CIVIL APPEAL NO. 8469 OF 2013 (Arising out of SLP (C) No.12350 of 2013)   State of Rajasthan …APPELLANT   VERSUS   A.N. Mathur & Ors. ….RESPONDENTS   WITH   C.A.No.8470/2013 @ SLP(C)No.12351/2013, C.A.No.8471/2013 @ SLP(C)No.12352 /2013, C.A.No.8472/2013 … Continue reading →